When You Can't Fight
by timelordsinconverse
Summary: What happens when the Doctor cannot save Rose? Doctor Who Zombie AU
1. Prologue

It was all because he had wanted her to love him.

As the Doctor stood on the beach and surveyed the wreckage around him and reflected, he could think of nothing else. The knowledge choked him from the inside out as he stared at the waves. They ran up the sand and into channel dug by an unknown child then receded, beckoning him to follow.

If he could do everything over again, he would have joined her and let his fate end just as darkly, with just as much pain. That was what he deserved, after letting Rose go like that.

She hadn't deserved that.

She hadn't deserved any of it.

And he had let her die alone.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Here's the next part! I typed this up quickly and I'm playing around with writing style, so reviews would be much appreciated. Hope you enjoy. :)**_

Chapter One

He didn't pay attention to where they were going. That wasn't important, because Rose was across the console smiling at him and her tongue was sticking out from between her teeth, and that was all that mattered in the universe at that exact moment. He flipped a switch to look impressive and shot her a smile as the TARDIS landed.

She hadn't been feeling good, as of late. The queasy noises echoed around the console room with regularity now, and his repairs hadn't quite fixed whatever was wrong. He ignored her rumbled warning as he stretched out a hand for Rose to take. She took it and ran to the door with him.

He patted the door frame reassuringly. _Don't worry old girl, we'll get you back in shape any day now. See you later. _

Rose had been the one to fling the door open.

She'd been the one to go hurrying out.

"C'mon then, what are you waiting for?" Rose called over her shoulder as the chill air hit her face. She folded her arms to ward off the chill and scanned the landscape.

They were in the middle of a city square, except it was completely empty. There were cars sitting in the center of the road, doors hanging open. Some of them were ripped completely off. Store doors were shattered, and there were bodies on the ground.

Her smile wavered at about the same moment that what was wrong branded itself into his mind.

He was opening his mouth when the first of the bodies began to stir.

The sound got caught in his throat as one of them appeared behind her.

She frowned and opened her mouth to ask him what was going on as the thing grabbed her.

What poured from her lips was no longer a question, it was a terrified scream. Her eyes widened as rotted teeth tore into her shoulder.

The adrenaline he had been waiting on hit him seconds later—seconds too late, but never mind that—and he was dashing forward, grabbing her, fumbling for the TARDIS key that he had dropped in his pocket as her screams quieted and she twisted to look behind them.

_Where the bloody hell was it? Where was it? Where—_

His fingers closed on the metal shape and he thrust it into the lock, twisted, threw open the door. Rose was yelling for him to hurry. Everything around him had slowed to a crawl as he turned and followed her gaze.

A mass of the creatures had risen from the empty streets. They had hidden themselves so easily, and now he wondered how they were so idiotic as to have missed the heaps in the street and mistaken them for dead. How had they missed the tragic shape of the city in the first place? Rose pushed him through the door and he snapped out of the horrified thrall.

He closed the door behind them and ignored the moaning on the other side. His attention was only for Rose, who was starting to sway dizzily. Her hand covered the wound in her shoulder and came back bloody.

"I didn't see it. It just—out of nowhere, it was just _there_. What was it?"

She's waiting on him for an answer. He can't give it, because he is frozen.

"Doctor?"

_Oh, you idiot. You complete idiot._

He turned, because she needed him. She was confused and hurt, and he had to think of something to tell her. Fast.

He guided her to the console seat first. Then hurried to the storage under the console and began tossing things out of the way. Med kit, he had to find the med kit.

Cyborg med kit. No use. Human. Helpless against the virus that was racing through Rose's blood stream and rewriting everything that made her his pink and yellow human.

He kept throwing tools and memories out of the compartment and continued to search, even though he knew there was nothing underneath the console that would hold any value to him.

Zombie planets were scattered throughout the cosmos. As long as life forms traveled, the sicknesses that plagued them would follow.

The zombie one was vicious enough to survive travel and sneak through quarantine. And people were terrified enough to run away from it, while unknowingly carrying it. It adapted and took over whole planets. There was no cure recorded. He had visited zombie planets before and tried to save the day. The result was a heavy heart and tears wiped away to hide the memories of the people that he could not save.

"Doctor?" Rose's voice had grown scared and angry. She knew something was wrong.

He closed his fingers around the handle of the human med kit and turned to face her with a blank face.

"Sorry. I couldn't, ah, find the kit." She relaxed a little, though the pain and worry on her face was evident.

"Right, well better bandage me up before I bleed out, yeah?" She raised an eyebrow and he realized he had been frozen yet again. He nodded and popped the latches open.

"Right." He swiped a hand over his cheek and scratched at the shadows of stubble forming along his jawline.

"So what was that?" Rose met his eyes. Her expression did not carry the joking her voice had barely supported seconds ago. She knew he was scared, could see it in those deep brown eyes.

"I, ah, I'm not sure. Didn't get a good look, I was more concerned with getting back in the TARDIS." He smiled at her. Rose stared at him for a moment, calculating. Suddenly, bandaging her shoulder became much more important as he avoided her gaze and peeled the torn fabric of her shirt away from the angry flesh. There were specks of deep black embedded in the red blood where some of the rot must have broken free. He swallowed the urge to throw up and pulled out an antiseptic wipe. Rose winced as he began dabbing at the open flesh.

"Sorry." He spoke around the lump that was rapidly forming in his throat.

"S'okay. Hey—look at you, the Doctor doing some actual doctoring. Who'd have thought?" Rose was still testing the mood in the room and trying to improve it. The Doctor laughed at that, but it was mostly poorly concealed hysteria. How funny. Rose was joking and she didn't know she was about to suffer a fate that was worse than death.

He couldn't bring himself to fix that fate, either. Without that cure, there was only one alternative.

He could not kill his Rose Tyler.

He couldn't watch her turn into a zombie, either.

What was he going to do?

_Better thing of something fast, or you're not gonna have a companion to travel with any more._


End file.
